


Mediocrity

by Jastra



Category: Hotline Miami (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Drug Use, Gen, Phone Calls & Telephones, Richard is creepy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 17:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16814764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jastra/pseuds/Jastra
Summary: Alex dreams of the table sequence, only to wake up to have another talk with Richard.





	Mediocrity

_"What? What's going on?" Alex asked all confused when she found herself standing in a large room with Ash along with her friends sitting around a long wooden table, companied by people she had never seen before. They were all wearing their masks and when blond woman realized that no one was moving, she squeezed her brother's shoulder to get his attention._

“ _Ash?” she asked quietly, but didn't get any answer from her swan masked twin._

_They weren't really there and somehow it felt like she shouldn't be there either, not yet._

_It almost felt like time itself was standing still, yet there was one person in the room who had acknowledged her presence_

_Alex could feel a sense of dread overwhelm her when the man sitting at the end of the table wearing a rooster mask slowly turned his head to look at her. She could hear his soft breathing underneath the rubber mask as he stared at her._

_"Bit early for this, isn't it?" he asked and pointed a gun at her, pulling the trigger._

“Ash! Tony!" Alex cried out in moment of panic and confusion when she woke up with a jolt. Her toned body was coated in a thin layer of cold sweat and she was breathing frantically, looking around the dark room to find her friends and any sign of the man in the rooster mask.

However, the panic, disorientation and confusion quickly faded away when she found herself all alone in her bedroom and realized that it had all been just one hell of a nightmare.

“God...I need to lay off the drugs,” she muttered quietly as the events of the previous evening creeped back to her mind. Her heart was still racing and the masked vigilante just knew she wouldn't be able to sleep again.

They had purged yet another apartment building the Russian mob had turned into one of their drug dens. Naturally they had slaughtered every single person inside, but she had taken the opportunity to snatch some of the product for her own use. Afterwards they had hit their usual hangout place to party the night away, only for her to leave early thanks to the fight she had gotten into with her brother about her drug use during “missions”.

_I'm wielding a chainsaw, what does he expect?_

The familiar scent of marijuana lingered in the air and there were few stumps on the ashtray beside her bed. She had smoked after returning home, trying to relax after a night of peril and death.

The blond could still clearly recall how her saw had sunk into the thug's stomach, tearing away at his entrails as he screamed in agony, the scent of gas and blood making her head spin. Being high on adrenaline and cutting through the river of gangsters with her saw with the chance of death looming over her made her feel so good.

”Ugh. What time is it?” Alex muttered out loud all drowsily as she glanced at her alarm clock that rested on a worn down night table next to her bed.

The electronic clock read 3:40 am in bright red light.

”Sheesh…” the blond woman let out and rubbed her tired eyes as she sat up on the bed, feeling the cool wooden floor underneath her bare feet. For a moment, she just sat there, listening to the sounds of the Miami night. Cars, music, distant angry yelling. The neighborhood she lived in was just wonderful...

"Just what the hell was that?" the veteran muttered, pondering the meaning of her dream for a moment, only to let out a soft sigh and glance at the window. The nightmare had felt so vivid and real...like she had seen that place and table before.

She could see the neon lights of the city shining through the partly torn blinds. Miami never slept, never slowed down. It was as if the whole city was fueled by violence and the drugs that poured in.

Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep again, Alex got up and headed towards the door. She could hear the faint music in the apartment building, the vibrations of the base running through her. It would have been completely dark inside if it wasn't for the street and various neon lights that seeped through the blinds, casting long and foreboding shadows over the walls.

The blond woman yawned slightly as she made her way through the dark apartment towards the bathroom. She needed a shower.

_***Ring ring….Ring ring*** _

Alex's soft and quiet steps came to a sudden halt when she heard the sharp, eerie sound of a telephone ringing in the dark corridor. For a fleeting moment, she just stood there in her underwear in utter confusion, unsure if what she had heard was real or not. She finally snapped out of her daze when the phone rang loud and clear once more, clearly very real.

”What? Who could it be at this hour?” Alex wondered out loud. ”Don’t tell me Ash has lost his keys or wallet again,” she added quietly and headed towards the sound, passing the living room.

She picked up the green receiver and brought it to her ear.

”Hello? Who is it?” Alex asked quietly in tired voice, but was met only with silence. ”Hello? If this is a prank call it isn’t very funny,” she snapped, starting to lose her patience. The night of murdering, partying and drugs had left her drained and completely exhausted.

” **Do you like hurting other people?”**

Alex could feel her whole body tense up, not because of the question, but because the voice was not coming from the phone line. Whoever had answered her was inside her home. With the receiver still in her hand, the blonde woman slowly turned towards the living room with widen eyes, her heart racing almost uncontrollably.

_Is this a dream?_

Suddenly, the world seemed somehow distorted and dreamlike. The music faded away as the shadows grew darker and the pink neon lights that bled through the window blinds turned more intense in their hue, basking the living room in their eerie light that reminded Alex of blood.

The blond woman moved on an instinct, dropping the receiver and reaching for the table's drawer which the phone rested on.

She pulled out a 9mm handgun and took the safety off before starting to slowly approach the living room where her uninvited guest resided. The corridor felt somehow longer, endless even, and though her feet were bare, her steps felt somehow heavy and loud, echoing from the walls.

"Who the hell are you?" the blond asked with slightly trembling voice when she saw the man from her dream sitting on the couch, wearing a rooster mask and staring straight at her.

The stranger cocked her head slightly to the side, and for some reason, Alex just knew that he was sneering at her.

"We've met before, surely you remember?"

"I don't!" Alex hissed, aiming the gun at the stranger who seemed completely relaxed.

"Is this another dream?Alex asked herself, unsure anymore what was reality and what was not.

"Isn't it all a dream in the end?" Richard replied, lounging on the black couch, his demeanor cold and uncaring. "Does it affect your actions? You are dreaming of elevation to fame through violent means, but one has to wonder....are you simply in it for the violence? Because you enjoy hurting others."

"I..." Alex hesitated, not sure what to answer in this bizarre conversation she was having with the man. It looked like he was wearing a mask, but somehow she wasn't sure if it was one. Hell, she wasn't even sure if he was really there. "I don't...I don't understand. We are simply doing what is right, getting rid of the filth that has overwhelmed this city; like _**he**_ did!"

For a moment, Richard was silent, only to lean forward, wiping a remains of a cocaine line she had done earlier with his finger.

"One could say you don't differ from those you kill. Violence is what you are after, there is no greater meaning to your actions."

"Its not like that!" Alex snapped at the masked intruder, refusing to listen to this. "We are trying to do what _**he**_ did, to reach same fame and outcome. He brought down the whole mob organization!"

Richard remained silent once more, but somehow Alex knew he was unimpressed.

Ash was the one who thought of what they did to be heroic, unlike her. She knew she was in this for the wrong reasons, but refused to admit it to this stranger. There was no greater purpose to her actions...all she craved was the adrenaline rush and violence.

Alex was breathing heavily now, her hand shaking slightly true to the rage that was starting to quickly overwhelm her. He was a representation of her.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness,” the rooster masked man said in flat, emotionless tone.

At that moment, Alex wished she had her chainsaw with her, so that she could decapitate that arrogant stranger and cut him into pieces. There was a mad gleam in her green eyes.

Refusing to continue the pointless conversation, Alex could feel her finger tightening around the trigger.

A loud gunshot rang loud and clear inside apartment.

The blond woman found herself blinking a couple of times in confusion. It almost felt like she had been snapped back to the reality the moment she had pulled the trigger. She could once more hear the faint bass of the music and somehow the dreamlike world around her instantly disappeared, leaving her all alone in the apartment, completely lucid and clearheaded. The receiver was back in its rightful place, as if never having been picked up in the first place.

_Did the phone really ring?_

She glanced at the smoking gun in her hand before gazing at the couch that was empty with only a small entry point in the black leather; the bullet had hit the black couch and nothing else.

 _Was I sleep walking?_ the blond wondered, only to have the front door get violently kicked open. In her shocked state all the young woman could do was stand there when Ash rushed in, ready to shoot anyone who moved to death.

"Alex!" her brother yelled when he saw her sister standing there alone in her underwear with a gun in her hand.

Ash scanned the rooms quickly for any sign of danger, the years of combat training and the jobs having honed his reflexes. When he realized that Alex was all alone in the apartment, the techie lowered his handgun, looking incredibly angry and frustrated with her.

"What the fuck is wrong with you Alex? Did you forget all about the sewer incident? We all agreed to lie low for a while and you go shooting guns at nothing! What if the cops arrive?" Ash snapped at his sister who quickly collected herself, slightly shaken after her dreamlike encounter.

"Oh come now Ash, be both know gunshots are part of this neighborhood ambiance," she scoffed and put the safety on before placing the gun back into a drawer.

"Have you been doing drugs again?" he asked, glancing at the table. “Are you on something right now?”

"Just a bit of weed, nothing more," the blond girl replied all frustrated, her mind still on the rooster masked man from her dream. Maybe she better layoff the drugs for a while to be effective during the combat. The last thing she wanted was to get her brother killed.

The intense glare from Ash made Alex bite her tongue slightly and glance away, still not quite sure if this was real or not.

"I just had a bad dream...nothing more."

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to write something about Hotline Miami. I've been playing it a lot lately. 
> 
> I really had hard time writing Richard since he is so mysterious. I just wanted to keep him as in the table sequence even if something more akin to Alex herself wearing the mask would have fit in better. :D


End file.
